I apologize if this question has been asked before. I've checked the FAQ and I've browsed a little bit (not extensively) through the forums but I haven't been able to find any posting related to this question.

I learned Latin in high school but without going into too much detail about my age I will say that this was a long time ago. Now I've decided I want to learn Latin and I've bought myself a copy of Wheelock's book. I've seen some postings about grammars and I think I'm OK in that respect. What I would need advice for is a good, dependable dictionary. Do you have any good recommendations? I speak English and Spanish, so Latin to any of these two languages would work.

As far as something you can hold in your hands, New College is cheap (5.99). My hardback is Cassell. Like most dictionaries, it works. OF course, Oxford is good. I would save the expensive stuff for later though.
Nathan

Hi.
Could you tell me how Cassel is?
I don't have money for Oxford Latin Dictionary, for it is 40000 yen in Japan, about 400 dollars.
I use bantam and a Latin-Japanese dictionary.
It is enough with these two for me.
But they have almost no example sentence.
So they are weak with words with varioius meanings, it is difficult to select the right meaning.

Bantam is very very cheap, but is very useful.
The number of entries are quite many, compared to other pocket dictionaries.
And it has four forms for each verbs, like amo/amare/amavi/amatus, while other pocket dictionaries have only "amo" form.
And Bantam has idioms.
Bantam has entries of "perfect tense". But there are a few that are not covered.
My Japanese dictionary has a lot of perfect tense entries.
Like, bantam doesn't have "surrexi" for surgo, but the Japanese one has.
With verbs, Bantam indicates with what case (with genitive, with ablative, etc.) they are used. But not in every verb that needs such explanation it is indicated.
Bantam has good paradigms of verbs and nouns in the front part of the book.

In Amazon Japan's review, it is said that Cassell has not many entries. Maybe they are fewer than in bantam. I don't know how many Latin-English entries there are in Bantam, but my Latin-Japanese has 45000 entries with no Japanese-Latin part. The Japanese one was 5000 yen, about 50 dollars.

Thanks to all who responded. I had in fact considered Cassell's but I was a little put off by the following review from Amazon:

You have to know Latin to use it,
October 23, 2005
By D. P. Birkett (Suffern, NY USA)
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
I thought it was time to get a new Latin dictionary since I noticed the one I was using (a Dr Short's) was over a hundred years old and falling apart (getting to resemble its owner). I also thought a newer one would take cognizance of the fact that these days fewer people have studied Latin grammar , but this one still seems to assume that its users start off knowing Latin.
I tried it out on a line from Ovid's Metamorphoses that I happen to already know:
Pinus [the pine] nondum [not then] caesa [cut] suis[in its] montibus [mountains] descenderat [descended] in [into] undas [waves] liquidas [liquid] ut [in order to] viseret [see] peregrinum [the foreign] orbem [world]
Six important words (caesa, suis, montibus, descenderat, viseret, and orbem) are not found in this dictionary, and the only way a student could get to them would be by already knowing a lot of Latin and knowing that they are derived from the following listed words:
Caedo
Suus
Mons
Descendo
Orbis
Video

josepm.fontana wrote:Thanks to all who responded. I had in fact considered Cassell's but I was a little put off by the following review from Amazon:

You have to know Latin to use it, October 23, 2005By D. P. Birkett (Suffern, NY USA) (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME) I thought it was time to get a new Latin dictionary since I noticed the one I was using (a Dr Short's) was over a hundred years old and falling apart (getting to resemble its owner). I also thought a newer one would take cognizance of the fact that these days fewer people have studied Latin grammar , but this one still seems to assume that its users start off knowing Latin.I tried it out on a line from Ovid's Metamorphoses that I happen to already know:Pinus [the pine] nondum [not then] caesa [cut] suis[in its] montibus [mountains] descenderat [descended] in [into] undas [waves] liquidas [liquid] ut [in order to] viseret [see] peregrinum [the foreign] orbem [world]Six important words (caesa, suis, montibus, descenderat, viseret, and orbem) are not found in this dictionary, and the only way a student could get to them would be by already knowing a lot of Latin and knowing that they are derived from the following listed words:CaedoSuusMonsDescendoOrbisVideo

Unfortunately for the novice, this is the case with any good dictionary, including Short's, for which reason I am perplexed with the above review. Nouns and verbs are always listed by their first principle part, which often is not the form in which you will encounter words in actual reading. A dictionary which contained the same word under multiple headings would be extremely unwieldy.

Fortunately there are applications such as Perseus and Words to help you identify unfamiliar inflexions.

You are totally right. That's why I was considering the purchase of a good Latin dictionary together with a not so good one that had a more reduced vocabulary but contained more forms for the more frequent words. Having the tools that you mention (perseus and words), though. Makes the purchase of the other dictionary unnecessary.

Sorry about my ignorance, but which of the Short's dictionaries are you referring to? In amazon.com there are a few dictionaries whose author is Short (some of them very expensive):

And by the way, since you seem to be an old timer here (or at least you are the moderator) and presumably an experienced latinist, what is your opinion? What dictionary would you recommend? I don't think I can afford the Oxford one, though

josepm.fontana wrote:Thanks to all who responded. I had in fact considered Cassell's but I was a little put off by the following review from Amazon:

You have to know Latin to use it, October 23, 2005By D. P. Birkett (Suffern, NY USA) (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME) I thought it was time to get a new Latin dictionary since I noticed the one I was using (a Dr Short's) was over a hundred years old and falling apart (getting to resemble its owner). I also thought a newer one would take cognizance of the fact that these days fewer people have studied Latin grammar , but this one still seems to assume that its users start off knowing Latin.I tried it out on a line from Ovid's Metamorphoses that I happen to already know:Pinus [the pine] nondum [not then] caesa [cut] suis[in its] montibus [mountains] descenderat [descended] in [into] undas [waves] liquidas [liquid] ut [in order to] viseret [see] peregrinum [the foreign] orbem [world]Six important words (caesa, suis, montibus, descenderat, viseret, and orbem) are not found in this dictionary, and the only way a student could get to them would be by already knowing a lot of Latin and knowing that they are derived from the following listed words:CaedoSuusMonsDescendoOrbisVideo

Edit: beaten by a mile.

You can safely ignore this reviewer, don't worry. If you need help with morphology, use Whitaker's words (linked above) or Perseus.

Josep, sorry but I only mentioned the Short dictionary in response to the review which you quote. I assume that the reviewer was referring to the well known Lewis & Short dictionary (I know of no dictionary referred to simply as "Short's"). Consequently, L&S is the dictionary I recommend if the OLD is too expensive (as well as unwieldy). I myself use Cassell's, more because it's my smallest and lightest one than my favorite. Cassell's does frustrate me from time to time - it lacks curse words, many proper names, and has very limited coverage of idioms - but for the most part it is solid. For it's size, it is much better than most pocket dictionaries just because it provides examples of words in context, but there may be some good pocket dics from Oxford or some other uni. Just be sure if you get Cassell's not to get the concise edition, if what the previous poster said is true.

mingshey wrote:Diogenes seems to contain the Oxford Latin Dictionary as well as Liddell & Scott.